1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates in general to computers, and more particularly to apparatus, method and computer program product embodiments for replication of deduplicated data in a computing storage environment.
2. Description of the Related Art
Deduplication systems may externalize various logical data storage entities, such as files, data objects, backup images, data snapshots or virtual tape cartridges. It is often required that such data storage entities be replicated from their origin site to remote sites. Replicated data entities enhance fault tolerance abilities and availability of data. Such fault tolerance and wide availability is increasingly demanded. While several existing approaches may be used to perform data replication, and specifically, replication of deduplicated data entities, these approaches have accompanying limitations that negatively affect replication efficiency, system performance and data consistency, require additional overhead, or a combination of the above.